The OFFICIAL new Enterprise - Let the critiques begin!

The 'seams' are actually a little over a meter in width (don't believe me, just put a person from the image near one... the Galaxy class's seams ARE measured in meters). The idea that they're part of the 'shield grid' is a TNGism to explain it away - despite the fact that they're an amateur modelist's 'trick' to show scale.

trevanian said:
Since there are a couple different notions about how transporters actually work, yeah, I can easily figure them not to have replication. Somethingfornothing or somethingfornextonothing ain't quite the same as having Jeanie/genie blink you from one spot to the next.

Whether you figure the transporter actually converts matter to energy and back again (which sounds like an explosion to me, and I think Blish says as much in his novel), or whether it works like a dirac jump or a tunnel diode, it still isn't altering matter into a different form, or xeroxing one piece of matter into multiples.

Honestly, the two bits of tech have never seemed similar to me at all, though now that you point it out, I can see why folks might make that assumption.

Click to expand...

I myself consider Spock Must Die to be the 80th episode, but the people in this movie don't. So we're stuck with theoretically-impossible (as opposed to practically impossible) transporters than run via Plot-Device Induction.

The official trailer is up at movies.yahoo.com now. I like the look of the ship, but I think they hosed up the scale. Judging by the guys on the surface of the saucer, it looks almost twice as big as it should be. But I'm thinking (hoping) that this is *just* a teaser, and not meant to be in the final movie, and they get the final scale right.

I do have models of aircraft.. they don't include the rivets no more than my model space shuttle adds huge seam lines where they're not or my model ships ever had large lines to 'define scale' or had rivets THERE either.

When I see a big-ass 'seam line' or oversized rivet, or whatever, it screams 'lame-ass model' rather than bringing me into the illusion.

I'm pretty sure that it's a trailer-only thing, though. I mean, really, the spot-welding and iron mask alone would be pretty ridiculous for the UESPA, wouldn't it? We don't build ships that way now, after all...

Vance said:
The 'seams' are actually a little over a meter in width (don't believe me, just put a person from the image near one... the Galaxy class's seams ARE measured in meters). The idea that they're part of the 'shield grid' is a TNGism to explain it away - despite the fact that they're an amateur modelist's 'trick' to show scale.

Click to expand...

Really, I thought it was a TMPism. That is, after all, where they first appeared.

The TMP Enterprise has a few seams, but not many, and they're not the 'hard lines' that you see here. Probert was dead set against them, and 'capitulated' for the use of aztecing to add detail rather than the 'Star Wars' mindset of adding greeblies and panels out the wazoo.

This has the panels of a Star Wars/BSG ship, but not the Greelies (from what we see). I'm glad for that much.

Seriously what's the purpose of Aztecing in the first place, other than it's supposed to make a ship look cool?

If it's the "grain" of the material used to fabricate the hull panels placed in alternating locations for strength then that would be bad from an engineering perspective. An engineer would want the grain to run parallel with the panels and perpendicular to the internal structure for max strength. Its that way in pressurized aircraft design, spacecraft should be likewise. So it cant be that IMO.

Lord_Schtupp said:
Seriously what's the purpose of Aztecing in the first place, other than it's supposed to make a ship look cool?

If it's the "grain" of the material used to fabricate the hull panels placed in alternating locations for strength then that would be bad from an engineering perspective. An engineer would want the grain to run parallel with the panels and perpendicular to the internal structure for max strength. Its that way in pressurized aircraft design, spacecraft should be likewise. So it cant be that IMO.

Click to expand...

It's too regular to be grain anyway, isn't it?

I think of it as some sort of exotic energy dispersion outer layer, 'grown' on top of the hull panels themselves to try and disperse the energy of disruptors/whatever away from the hull. Almost every Starfleet ship that we've seen has one (even the TOS Constitution in IAMD, though it's subtle--and thus, pretty IMO), so it has to serve some purpose.

Artistically, I'll take it over Star Wars/BSG-style hull detailing. While I feel that the aztecing on this ship is a bit too high-contrast for my tastes, I much prefer it to what I was half-afraid of: an Enterprise with a Star Destroyer type greeble-coated hull.

trevanian said:
Since there are a couple different notions about how transporters actually work, yeah, I can easily figure them not to have replication. Somethingfornothing or somethingfornextonothing ain't quite the same as having Jeanie/genie blink you from one spot to the next.

Whether you figure the transporter actually converts matter to energy and back again (which sounds like an explosion to me, and I think Blish says as much in his novel), or whether it works like a dirac jump or a tunnel diode, it still isn't altering matter into a different form, or xeroxing one piece of matter into multiples.

Honestly, the two bits of tech have never seemed similar to me at all, though now that you point it out, I can see why folks might make that assumption.

Click to expand...

I myself consider Spock Must Die to be the 80th episode, but the people in this movie don't. So we're stuck with theoretically-impossible (as opposed to practically impossible) transporters than run via Plot-Device Induction.

Had a 100% copy of the TOS ship been in the Teaser....
The "Unwashed Masses" would of LAUGHED at the Teaser....
Aren't Star Trek fans sick of the "Unwashed Masses" makeing fun of us after all these years ?
Why give them even more fuel to fire at us ?
I love the old ship as much as the next person, but lets face it, the "Unwashed Masses" see it as a joke still.
You know it's true, don't fool yourself.
When I saw this teaser at the local theater, not one person laughed, zero, nada, in fact I hear whispers that seem to indicate that these people were curious as to what they just saw, so the teaser did do it's job, yes ?
We need to relize this film isn't being made for us, it's being made for the "Unwashed Masses" so everything isn't going to look like 1966 no matter what.
We can't go home again, ever, for better or worse.
The "Star Wars Fans" would so egg on us if the 1966 version showed up on the big screen in a Star Trek movie made for 2008 and you know they wouldn't let up, ever.
So we're stuck with this from this point forward.
Part of this is Star Trek's fault, had "Enterprise" not looked MORE advanced then the old ship we wouldn't even BE in this situation in the first place, and try as we might we can't decanonize that show, well, except maybe TATV